The Meaning of Home – How I Became a C.O.W.

Seven years ago, I wrote a blog post that started like this:  Is it possible I have lived in China for two years?  Can I say China feels like home to me now?  Can one’s own country feel like a foreign land?…..yes, yes, and yes!  Where is home?  It is said, “Home is where the Heart is”; “Home is where the bra isn’t”; “Home is where you hang your hat”; “Home is where the Wi-Fi connects automatically”; and “There’s no place like home”.   So where is home for me?  Home, my roots, will always be Warren, Ohio, but living and traveling abroad for roughly 3 years (if you count my stint in Paris), I honestly have to say, I feel like home has been so much more than Warren, Ohio, I have left my heart in so many places.

Seven years later, along with Paris, France, and four cities in China, I have added Bali, Indonesia, and Warsaw, Poland to places I call home.  But, what about Zenira Camp, in Bulgaria?  Or the Maasai Giraffe Eco Lodge and Bright English Medium School in Tanzania?  How about that cute little Airbnb I called home in Istanbul, Türkiye?  And don’t forget about…well, you get the idea.

It’s nearly the end of April 2024 and I am sitting here thinking about packing up remnants of the last four-plus years of my life in my current home, Warsaw.  Since I have made it known that I am leaving Poland at the end of this year, I have heard the question, “Where to next?” many times over.  Where to next?  That’s a big question that doesn’t have a clear answer.  Although I believe I became a C.O.W. a long time ago, I am about to truly live that title.  For those of you who don’t know what it means to be a C.O.W., it’s not the one grazing in the fields of the mid-west USA, even though I did eat like one of those tonight or did I eat one of them…anyway, a vegetarian or vegan is not me.

Socrates (469-399 BC) concurred: “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” A revolutionary thought for the time.  According to Wikipedia, a Citizen of the World, or C.O.W. is the idea that one’s identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: “humanity”.  To me, more simply, it means that no matter where I am in this one universe of 8 planets, 7 continents, 195 countries with 8 billion people, I feel at home.

Let’s talk about the meaning of that four-letter word… “home”.  I’ve come to the conclusion that home isn’t a place, but a mindset, a feeling.  I often believe that I have lived other lives, how else can I explain my comfort levels even in the far corners of the world?  As a child, spending a week in the Pennsylvania mountains at Seneca Hills Church Camp was a joy even if I didn’t always know anyone else.

Nine years ago I landed in a rural village not knowing the language and very little about the customs.  I was “yellow hair” (that’s what some of the kids called me) and blue eyes in a sea of black hair and black eyes.  But I forgot I looked different…until I took a walk through the village and people pointed and small children hid behind their parents because they never saw a foreigner or I saw a photo of me with my class.  Yet, I never felt uncomfortable.  That was my first home in China and it will always be near and dear to my heart.  I felt like I belonged there which is why 6 months turned into 4 years.

Back to the home of my roots, Warren, Ohio.  I am proud to call Warren, Ohio home.  It was a great place to grow up and it will be a great place to return to one day.  Yes, Bill Duda, I am coming back one of these days.  I think my 10-year-old self would be proud of my 61-year-old self.  My 10-year-old self had dreams of Paris and visions of baobabs, zebras, giraffes, elephants, and epic sunsets behind massive acacia trees.  You know, straight out of Nat Geo.  Nothing felt out of reach and I never thought those places would be uncomfortable…  Comfortable, home is where you feel comfortable.  I am often asked how many countries I have visited.  I’ve stopped counting.  I mean there is the US list of recognized countries, the UN list of member countries with 2 recognized independent nations (Vatican City and Palestine), and then you have the list of dependencies and autonomous regions.  It’s complicated…I have visited Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, and Tibet yet if I go by UN countries, these don’t count. Now I just answer, “A lot or over 40 if a number is necessary” and that seems to be an acceptable answer.

I have traveled on four of the seven continents, lacking South America, Australia, and Antarctica. I have been camelback in the Gobi Desert, slept in a tent with 4 strangers (who became friends) at Mount Everest Base Camp, been moved to tears at Pura Besakih, the Mother Temple in Bali, pedaled a bicycle built for 15 around the streets of Paris drinking wine with complete strangers, touched the Great Pyramid of Giza, stayed with a classmate in Tokyo that I hadn’t seen in over 35 years, slept in the home of a co-worker in rural China that had no indoor plumbing to celebrate Chinese New Year, took bucket showers with water heated over an open fire in Maasai country in remote northern Tanzania, and dined with the captain of a ship floating around the Mediterranean. The list goes on, but the bottom line is that I felt comfortable or “at home” in all of these places.  At those moments in time, there was nowhere else I would rather have been and that’s what home feels like.  As Maya Angelou said, “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”

Other than Warren, Ohio, Warsaw, Poland is the place I have called home the longest.  I spent 4 years in China but lived in 4 different cities.  When I finally leave Poland, Warsaw will have been my home for nearly 5 years.  It’s comfortable, but it’s time to move on and become a true citizen of the world.

My home will no longer have a physical address, so Lynn the next lines are for you.  I hope to continue our “PenPal” correspondence. Without a physical address, I am hoping you will consider sending letters to my aunt who will hold them for my return.  I will continue to write you from the road which will be my home.

As I have discovered, home isn’t defined by four walls.  When my journey takes me to the road, I will find “home” in the people, places, and activities I encounter. For me, home doesn’t know geography.  I can feel at home anywhere.  It doesn’t know time.  I have felt at home spending one day or 4 years somewhere.  And, it knows no language or religion.  Home comes from inside you.  That’s why goodbyes are difficult and I avoid them at all costs.  A master of absquatulation or the Irish Goodbye.

Home will find me wherever the road leads.  It is most likely going to be one with a lot of solitude but home will rise to meet me.  Early on, I mentioned the cliché phrase, “Home is where the heart is”.  Maybe not so cliché after all considering I have left pieces of my heart in all the places I have traveled.  As the Japanese Poet Masuo Basho said, “The Journey Itself is My Home”.